Zorba the Hutt's Revenge (6 page)

When the snack arrived, Ken quickly gobbled down three candy-flavored buns!

Zorba talked on and on about how the braze of Bespin was having a bad effect on the tourist trade. And then, when Zorba felt he had waited long enough for the avabush spice to put Ken in a truthful and cooperative mood, he began by asking some serious questions.

"Tell me, my boy," Zorba said. "Are you a Jedi Prince?" Ken brushed his moppy brown hair out of his eyes and said, "I don’t know for sure, sir. I don’t know who my parents were. The droids never told me."

"Which droids?" Zorba asked, rolling his big yellow eyes suspiciously.

"The droids who raised me."

"Raised you? Where?"

"In the Lost City of the . . . I mean, well, it was somewhere on Yavin Four. Or Yavin Three, I mean."

Zorba gave a devious smile. "Tell old Zorba the truth now. Hutts can get very nasty when boys lie."

"Yavin Four. I grew up in the Lost City of the Jedi," Ken continued, yawning as though he had suddenly become sleepy. "It’s deep underground, in the middle of the rain forest. When I was little, I think my parents were killed in the Great War, but no one ever told me who they were. I think maybe my name, Ken, comes from Kenobi. I might be related to Obi-Wan Kenobi, but I don’t know because the droids who raised me wouldn’t tell me. All they told me was that a Jedi Knight in a brown robe took me to the Lost City for safety, so the Imperial stormtroopers wouldn’t find me and . . ." Ken yawned again. "Do we have to talk about this anymore?" he asked. "I’m feeling so tired."

"You’ve told me enough," Zorba said. "There’s no doubt about it. You’re Ken, the Jedi Prince I’ve heard so much about." Zorba laughed with delight. "A-HAW-HAW-HAW! . . . Put him in one of the cells in the basement, where we keep the casino crooks we catch!" Zorba instructed.

"Of course, Zorba," Tibor replied.

"And then contact Trioculus on the factory barge. Tell him we have Ken, the Jedi Prince. Tell him if he still wants the boy, he should come to Cloud City so we can negotiate a deal!"

Zorba tossed one more gemstone at Tibor’s feet.

"Thank you, Zorba!" Tibor said.

When Trioculus got the news, he locked Princess Leia alone in his factory barge chamber, leaving fine food and beverages for her. Then he departed for Cloud City at once, taking twenty stormtroopers with him as bodyguards.

Later that same afternoon, Trioculus and his bodyguards entered the Holiday Towers Hotel and Casino. The stormtroopers waited in the hall outside Zorba’s penthouse suite, while Trioculus and Zorba bargained for their prisoners.

"I hear you are the new governor of Cloud City," Trioculus began. "Congratulations. I’m sure you will bring discipline and prosperity to the gambling industry here."

"And congratulations to you, Trioculus," said Zorba, "on becoming the new leader of the Galactic Empire."

The formalities out of the way, Trioculus then told Zorba he had come to make a deal for Ken. But first he wanted to meet Zorba’s prisoner, to make certain he was actually the Jedi Prince.

Zorba instructed Tibor to take Trioculus to visit Ken in the cell in the Holiday Towers basement.

"A boy?" Trioculus said in surprise, as he first set his three eyes on the prisoner. "Why, you hardly look more than twelve or thirteen."

Ken pouted, refusing to reply.

Trioculus frowned. He had thought the Jedi Prince would be a man. How could this boy possibly be any great threat to his reign? But Kadann, the Supreme Prophet of the Dark Side, had warned Trioculus that he must quickly find the Jedi Prince named Ken and destroy him, or the Jedi Prince would destroy Trioculus! That was the prophecy. That was Trioculus’s destiny!

"Don’t be afraid of me," Trioculus said with a cunning smile. "I’ve come to Cloud City to help you. But first you must answer some questions."

Ken crossed his arms defiantly.

Trioculus heard static in his mind, static sent by Ken to attempt to cloud his thinking. And then Trioculus heard the words inside his mind: I’m not the boy you’re looking for!

Trioculus frowned again. "Don’t try those Jedi mind games on me, Ken. Stronger Jedi than you have tried and failed. It won’t work," he said with a sneer. And then he changed his sneer into a smile.

"Did you learn that trick in the Jedi Library, in the Lost City of the Jedi?" Trioculus asked.

Ken grabbed the bars of the cell and narrowed his eyes in a glare of anger. "Do you think I’ll talk to you, Trioculus? You’re a liar, a killer, and a destructive monster!"

"You flatter me," said Trioculus with an evil grin. "Which do you think I excel at the most? Lying? I’m indeed an expert at deception. Killing? No, every slave lord has to hold an execution now and then, it’s only natural. But now tell me, why do you consider me a monster?"

"You burned the rain forests on the fourth moon of Yavin!"

"I had to do what I did to try to find the Lost City. So I could find you."

"Perhaps the Jedi Prince would like another candy-flavored bun," Tibor offered sarcastically, handing the boy a bun through the bars of his cell. Ken’s stomach was still groaning with hunger. He munched on the bun as the three-eyed Imperial ruler asked Tibor to depart, so he could talk to the prisoner alone, in private. Tibor left as requested.

To foil spies and secret listening devices, Trioculus activated a small sound-wave scrambler he carried in his pocket. It would assure that no one else would hear what they were saying.

Ken yawned once more, feeling tired again. "Why did you want to find me?" Ken asked.

"Why, to become your protector, of course," Trioculus replied. "So you could leave the droids who raised you and be free."

Ken’s eyelids felt weighted down, dragging him once again into sleep. What had Trioculus just said, he wondered? Things were becoming foggy. Uhmm-something about wanting to become Ken’s protector .. .

"You-you don’t care about me," Ken declared, struggling to remain awake. "You’re a liar. I know why you’ve been looking for me. You want to destroy me because I know too much!"

"What do you think you know that I would care about?" Trioculus asked in a cagey tone.

"I know that you got to be ruler of the Empire by pretending you’re Emperor Palpatine’s son. But you’re not. You’re an impostor! I even know what you did to the Emperor’s real son, Triclops. And that he’s still alive!"

All three of Trioculus’s eyes widened in alarm. "Such an imagination for a boy your age. You have a head full of absurd fantasies."

"You know I’m telling the truth. And if you try to hurt me, I’ll escape and tell everything I know about you!"

"Who would you tell?" Trioculus asked.

"Kadann, the Supreme Prophet of the Dark Side," Ken said.

"Nothing escapes Kadann’s attention," Trioculus said. "I sincerely doubt you could tell him anything he hasn’t already foreseen in his prophecies."

"Then I’ll tell all your enemies in the Empire! If they ever find out the truth about you, they’ll assassinate you!"

Trioculus understood at once that this Jedi Prince would have to be destroyed, at any cost. If some of his enemies, who didn’t know any better, were to find out the truth, they would begin a search for the Emperor’s real son, and try to put that insane madman in power.

Trioculus had to stop that from happening. Palpatine’s real son, Triclops, was too dangerous and destructive for even the Empire to tolerate. Trioculus and the Central Committee of Grand Moffs knew all too well that Triclops was incurably insane and a terrible threat. They had managed to imprison and hide him in Imperial insane asylums. But they knew it would be unwise to destroy him, because Triclops often betrayed himself. In his mad dreams, he had come up with many ideas that had proved useful to the Empire. His ideas-and inventions-had been essential to them for building certain weapons and machines of destruction.

"You’re a young boy with strong opinions and dangerous ideas," Trioculus said, his voice suddenly becoming very gruff. "We shall meet again, Jedi Prince Ken. Very soon!" Trioculus went back to see Zorba the Hutt at once.

"I want that boy," Trioculus said. "What is your price?" Zorba gave a slobbering smile and chuckled. "I want just two things." Trioculus clenched his fists. "Name them."

"Number one," said Zorba. "I want you to close down your factory barge here. Your smokestacks cause braze."

"A little braze never harmed anyone," Trioculus insisted.

"Hah!" Zorba exclaimed. "Hutts can’t stand braze, and neither can tourists." Zorba wagged his fat tongue at Trioculus scoldingly. "Business in the casinos is down-way down-even though we’re offering bigger jackpots than ever! Braze is driving our customers away-no one wants to come to Cloud City and breathe your foul smoke!"

"And the second thing?" said Trioculus, giving no hint of what his response would be to the first demand.

"Princess Leia. I know you have her. She murdered my son, Jabba, and she will pay with her life."

Trioculus knitted his eyebrows and frowned. "No. You cannot have Princess Leia." Zorba pounded his right fist into his left palm. "Leia for Ken! One human traded for another! Fair is fair!"

"No," said Trioculus.

Zorba’s pale, wrinkled face became inflamed, turning a bright, fiery red. "Yes!" Zorba hissed.

"No!" stormed Trioculus.

"Yes, yes, yes!! I am a Hutt, and a Hutt does not allow the murder of his son to go unavenged!" Zorba snorted, snarled, sneered, and then asked, "What use is the Rebel Alliance princess to you?"

"She will be my wife," Trioculus declared in a gruff, angry voice. "She will be Queen of the Empire!" Hearing those words, Zorba’s old heart nearly burst.

"And when she’s my queen," Trioculus continued, "there will be new taxes on every casino in Cloud City, starting with your Holiday Towers. Taxes for Queen Leia. So she can have anything her heart desires!"

Zorba’s yellow, reptilian eyes turned up in shock. He wheezed like a creature about to die.

"I want Ken," Trioculus repeated. "And for Ken I will give you . . . a new spaceship. They say the old Zorba Express is ready to be made into scrap." Zorba spit on the ground near Trioculus’s feet.

"Curse you, you three-eyed mutant!" he growled. "You will never get Ken!" Trioculus leaned forward, turning his hands into fists. "Give me Ken, now! Or I will destroy Cloud City!"

Zorba’s eyes narrowed and glowed like yellow fire.

"We met as friends today. We congratulated each other. But from now until the end of time, you and I are sworn enemies! And once a Hutt makes an enemy, there is no retreat until death!"

"It is you who will die for this, Zorba," Trioculus threatened.

"May I never look upon your ugly, scarred face again," Zorba replied. Trioculus pressed a button on the communication device on his belt. Seconds later, the door to the penthouse was smashed to pieces as Trioculus’s stormtroopers burst into the room, their blasters drawn.

But Zorba was just as fast on the button. His signal summoned an attack team of Cloud Police, hiding just beneath the floor. As a trapdoor popped open, the room was suddenly swarming with Zorba’s henchmen.

The sound of Zorba’s belly laugh echoed throughout the room. "A-HAW-HAW-HAW!!.."

CHAPTER 8

Revenge at Last!

Zorba’s penthouse was filled with blazing laserfire.

In the fast fury of combat, Zorba was struck several times, leaving small, black scorch marks on his thick, wrinkled skin. But his skin was tough enough to protect him. And he didn’t stop laughing for even a second.

Zorba’s twinkling yellow eyes watched with glee as his Cloud City Police devastated the stormtroopers using their new model laser pistols.

A few stormtroopers escaped from the penthouse suite with their lives. They fled down the hall and were captured by a second group of Zorba’s Cloud Police, who were just arriving on the top floor to serve as reinforcements.

The moment he realized that his defense forces were being defeated, Trioculus, half-crazed by the maddening sound of Zorba’s laughter, tried to escape too. But he ran smack into three approaching Cloud Police. They overpowered the three-eyed Imperial tyrant, shackled him, and took him directly back to the penthouse suite, to face Zorba the Hutt. Zorba pointed to the Cloud Police. "Take him away. Take him to the room where we encase victims in carbonite. I’ll deal with him as soon as I return from destroying the factory barge-and Princess Leia along with it!"

While those momentous events were taking place in the penthouse suite, something almost as momentous was going on in the basement of the Holiday Towers Hotel and Casino. A human guard brought a meal to Ken in his cell. But Ken was no longer hungry. He was now feeling much more alert, less tired, and able to make a plan of action. Ken decided to try the Jedi mind trick he’d tried on Trioculus. But this time he would use it on the guard instead.

He concentrated. Freeing his mind of all thoughts except the thought of getting free, he imagined the guard’s mind emptying-entering a state of total confusion.

"Can’t you see that I’m not the boy you are looking for!" Ken exclaimed. "I’m Tibor, the bounty hunter! The prisoner tricked me and locked me in here! Help me get out of here, before he gets away!"

It worked! Thinking Ken was Tibor, the guard apologized and hurriedly unlocked the cell. Soon Ken was outside the Holiday Towers building, running through the streets of Cloud City.

He passed many dazzling sights of the big city, including Masque Hall, where he peeked through a window to see the never-ending masquerade party.

Next he stumbled upon the Central Cloud Car Taxi Port. Unfortunately his pockets were empty. He had no credits to pay for a ride back to Han Solo’s sky house. The Jedi mind trick had worked once, so Ken tried it again on the taxi driver. And once again it worked. Ken actually convinced the taxi driver that he had already paid for the ride!

On the Imperial factory barge, Luke and Kate were searching for Princess Leia. Luke used the macrobinoculars he had brought with him to peer in the windows of every building he could see. He was trying to find any possible clue that might lead him to the princess.